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By Laura J. Gifford “ F


our score and seven years ago ....” Abraham Lincoln’s Get- tysburg Address, delivered at


the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery Nov. 19, 1863, entered the pantheon of the nation’s most endur- ing statements of purpose. But did you know that Lincoln’s


historic words came at the behest of David Wills, an 1851 graduate of a Lutheran school, then known as Pennsylvania College and renamed Gettysburg [Pa.] College in 1921? Wills was a prominent attorney and the superintendent of area schools. When the Confederate army briefly occupied the town in July 1863, he took a leading role in organizing the com- munity’s response. As soldiers swept through farms, businesses and the col- lege itself, Wills organized supplies and aid for the wounded. Following the Union army’s victory July 3, he helped farmers make compensation claims for lost property and initiated construction of the cemetery. In fall 1863, Wills invited Lincoln to say “a few appropriate remarks” at the consecration of this resting place for so many soldiers. Lincoln com- pleted his speech at Wills’ home before departing for the battlefield. Towns- folk and students of Pennsylvania College trailed in his wake and became some of the first to hear his immortal phrases. Today, Gettysburg College is a noted center for Civil War studies. The


Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg is the site of a Civil War battle. The Gettysburg Seminary Ridge Museum is set to open July 1 in his- toric Schmucker Hall, used as an observation post and a major field hospital during the war. Gettysburg is where the Civil War and the Lutheran church most visibly


intersect. Lutherans were Union soldiers and Confederates, allies of Lincoln and Southern defenders.


Slavery debate The slavery debate came later to the Lutheran church than it did to many other denominations. Several Lutheran synods merged in 1820 to form the General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America. While smaller church bodies continued to exist, the General Synod was dominant—and notably conservative compared to the predominant gov- erning structures of the United Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, each of which split in the years leading up to the war.


Lutherans maintained a strong synod structure because “they simply agreed not to talk about it,” said Susan Wilds McArver, professor of church history and educational ministry at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Colum- bia, S.C. “[General Synod Lutherans] elected to consider slavery a ‘political’


Gifford is scholar-in-residence in the George Fox University history department and the author of The Center Cannot Hold: The 1960 Presidential Election and the Rise of Modern Conservatism.


Brothers and sisters at arms


The complex history of Lutherans during the Civil War


issue and, as such, one that had no place in ‘ecclesiastical’ discussions.” That didn’t prevent individual Lutherans from taking more rigor- ous stands. Gettysburg College founder Samuel Simon Schmucker, for example, was known for his anti- slavery theology, and the college’s land was donated by abolitionist and Republican congressional firebrand Thaddeus Stevens. By the 1830s, however, some smaller Lutheran bodies began to assert abolitionist sentiments. The Franckean Synod in New York adopted a resolution in 1838 that launched the broader church into a contentious debate. Franckeans declared themselves abolitionists in no uncertain terms, arguing “boldly and plainly against this great national and heinous sin.” By 1845 they declared that fellowship was impos- sible with any “ecclesiastical body” tolerating, apologizing for or remain- ing silent upon the issue of slavery. Before the 19th century, McArver said these sentiments wouldn’t have


28 The Lutheran • www.thelutheran.org


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